I have been tentatively promised a phone interview with blues legend B.B. King in early August. He’s bringing his bluesfest show with Kenny Wayne Shephard and Joe Bonamossa to a rather isolated venue near our town and we are the closest daily newspaper.
At 80 years old, Mr. King is probably tired of the whole interview routine and has heard every bad interview question possible. I don’t want to add to his burden
I’m only a moderately knowledgeable fan, so I won’t be plying him with questions about who was sitting in with him on a record he released in 1955, but I’d like to ask a few that might lead to a good anecdote or two.
So far, I’m planning to ask about the $10 million museum in his honor which opened in June in Mississippi and which of the blues players that have died does he miss the most.
I’m aiming for Terry Gross more than Larry King here. Got any good questions? I’ll post the answers to any that I use right here.
Shepherd and Bonamassa are both young guys. You could ask him about which young players out there excite him.
You know what might be an interesting tack? Something like “Lots of people dream of playing with BB King. When you were getting started, was there anybody you were just dying to meet and jam with? What happened when you did?”
Ask him to tell you about how he got his first radio show, and the memories he has of doing the program, his band, the guests he had, the public reaction to it, if he was able to get more recognition from it and move up in the business, as it were. That ought to make for an interesting story!
Ask him to tell you about his first guitar. Not Lucille, the first one. Where he got it, how much it cost, what was the first thing he learned to play on it, how long did he use it before he got a better one. What was the better one he moved up to.
Ask him what was the worst gig he ever played. He will probably be too gracious to name names, but every musician has a bunch of war stories.
Wow, I could go on, but you’re doing the interview! Have fun!
I thought of another one. The first time he ever performed “The Thrill Is Gone” in public with a string section like on the record, was on the David Letterman program. He didn’t even perform it on the record like that, they added the strings later. Ask him to tell you about playing it on Letterman. I saw that show. He was terribly moved.
He appeared in “Amazon Women On The Moon” doing a fake TV commercial for Blacks Without Soul. It featured David Alan Grier doing a series of really inane, bland white-people songs, with BB pitching for money for research how to help blacks born without any soul.
I’d be curious to hear his memories of doing that bit in the movie.
I saw him in the early 70s; he showed up late and gave a terse 50 minute performance with no audience interaction. I saw him almost 30 years later and he played a 90 minute set and then jammed with some members of the opening act for another 20 minutes. He was friendly, funny, and just put on a terrific show. What happened to change him?
That is what 99% of the population think. But every human being is far more than that one thing they’re known for. I would imagine he would be dying for someone who is interested in him as a person rather than as “Spokesperson for the Blues.”
I would ask about what issues are closest to his heart?
“With the passing of Ray Chrales, general consensus seems that you are recognized as the ‘elder statesman’ of music in general, and blues in particular. What are your thoughts on being thought of in this fashion?”
Well, I’m a big fan of completly off the wall, inane questions, such as:
Favorite color?
If you were any potato product, what would you be?
Do you really check his blood sugar as often as those diabetes commercials say you do?
That sort of stuff. He’s talked about the blues, his music career, adn that sort of stuff so much he’ll probably love being intereviewed without any reagrd to what he does. Then again, he might hate it.
Ask him what Elvis was like and what is was like to be a blues performer and a rock & roller in the 50’s south. Also, ask him if there is anything he misses about that era.
Is he Type 1 or Type 2?
Has it effected his playing? (possibly from nerve damage in his hands?)
Has he ever had to cancel a show or cut one short because of it?
Thanks one and all. Some excellent suggestions, which I will incorporate into the interview. Assuming all goes well and the interview takes place, I will report the results back in this forum. The information given to me was “some time after August 3,” so I’m not sure when it will actually take place.
Hometown; I think the question I’d most ask Mr. King after all these years is: “BB, I know you’ve travelled all over the country playing your guitar. You’re playing has amazed so many people. What has amazed you most?”
Second: "When you were a young man playing on Beale Street, Memphis, did you ever see how far that music would come? What are your memories about radio, Elvis, and Memphis when you were playing there?
